BREAKING: Judge halts new teacher contract system for Durham and Guilford counties

GREENSBORO — A Superior Court judge on Wednesday put a halt, in at least two school systems, to the state’s mandate on giving raises to teachers who give up tenure.

Special Superior Court Judge Richard Doughton issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by the Guilford and Durham school boards, granting their request to put new state-mandated contracts on hold. They argued the law outlining the process, passed last year by the General Assembly, is unconstitutional.

Doughton also ruled against the state’s motions to dismiss the lawsuit.

The contracts are part of a state law that eliminates tenure, called career status in North Carolina, for all public school teachers by 2018. In the meantime, school districts are required to offer four-year contracts to 25 percent of their teachers that provide $500-a-year raises in return for educators’ surrendering their tenure rights.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, who championed the teacher contract law, will appeal the ruling.

“It is hard to fathom why a single judge and a small group of government bureaucrats would try to deny top-performing teachers from receiving a well-deserved pay raise,” Amy Auth, a spokeswoman for Berger, said in a written statement. “We will appeal this legal roadblock and continue to fight for pay increases for our best teachers.”

Ann McColl, a lawyer with the N.C. Association of Educators, said the scope of the ruling will be clearer with a written order. But there’s a strong argument for ordering a statewide halt, she said, because the law applies to the entire state.

“It would be within the authority of the judge that the injunction is enjoining the state from enforcing the law,” she said. “Until there’s a written order, we don’t know for sure.”